MacBook – Keyboard Not Working in Bootcamp

bootcampkeyboardmacbook pro

I just installed Bootcamp and Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro (13 inch, 2010), and booted into the OS. The keyboard and mouse worked fine, but because there were no drivers, things like multitouch and the two-finger mouse click didn't work – this is as expected.

I went back into OS X Lion and downloaded the Windows Support package to my thumb drive, rebooted, and installed the driver package and the Boot Camp Control Panel. After I had restarted, my keyboard wasn't working.

The weird thing is, the F-keys do work and function correctly (brightness, volume, etc). If I change those keys to perform the F-key functions in the control panel (ie. require holding Fn+F1 to change brightness), the F-keys work correctly.

Any of the keys below the F-key row do not work at all. They don't type anything, no matter what program I am in. The Caps Lock key does light up when I toggle it on and off.

I've tried going into the Device Manager and uninstalling the Keyboard driver and then scanning for hardware changes (which reinstalls the Apple Keyboard driver), I've uninstalled and deleted the driver (and then reinstalled it from the package in the WindowsSupport folder), and nothing is working. The keyboard appears as the Apple Keyboard in the device manager. The trackpad and everything works fine as well.

I checked the Language settings and it is set to United States (English).

Is there anything else I can try to get the keyboard working?

  • Windows 7 64bit (not SP1, yet)
  • MacBook Pro 13 inch 2010
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 250gb HDD, with 55gb partitioned for Windows

OS X Lion (10.7.3) is installed as well.

Best Answer

Before you do any of the steps mentioned below the line-break, check the bootcamp control panel first!!!

When in Windows, after everything is installed and done, do the following:

  1. Click 'Start ' (the windows logo-button in the bottom left corner)
  2. Type 'bootcamp'
  3. Open the bootcamp control panel. It will ask for administrator privileges, say 'yes' or 'ok' or whatever
  4. Configure the necessary settings for your startup disk, remote, keyboard and trackpad - these are the four tabs you should expect to see when the bootcamp control panel opens.

Your keyboard and trackpad should work (almost) perfectly. If not, read the answer that follows.

When you installed Windows the specific bootcamp drivers should have been installed automatically from your Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) DVD or 10.7 (Lion) DMG in the process. I would recommend trying to:

  1. Remove/Delete the drivers in Windows Device Manager
  2. Insert or mount the OSX DVD or DMG
  3. Restart your system (booting into Windows).

The correct bootcamp drivers should then be installed automatically from the OSX DVD. If the drivers were not installed, browse for them on the OSX DVD.

If all else fails you can always try re-installing Windows, and from there should be able to determine during the process if you have keyboard functionality.

★ The key to having the correct drivers working in bootcamp is installing them specifically from the OSX DVD or DMG.

The Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 Boot Camp Software includes these Mac drivers for Windows:

Apple Bluetooth
Apple Keyboard Support
Apple Remote Driver
Apple Trackpad
Atheros 802.11 Wireless
ATI Graphics
Boot Camp control panel for Microsoft Windows
Boot Camp System Task Notification item (System Tray)
Broadcom Wireless
Intel Chipset Software
Intel Integrated Graphics
iSight Camera
Marvel Yukon Ethernet
nVidia Graphics
Cirrus Logic Audio
Realtek Audio
SigmaTel Audio
Startup Disk control panel for Microsoft Windows
Related Question